What you need to know
Growth in total online sales slowed to 13.2% in 2014 following surprisingly strong growth of 15.3% in 2013. This represents a return to a longer term trend of decelerating growth as the market matures and we expect this to continue over the next five years.
Consumers are increasingly appreciating the benefits offered by strong multi-channel operators that are able to combine the strengths of selling online and in-store, such as Dixons and John Lewis. Meanwhile, pure plays have come to realise that they can’t afford to keep on selling at ultra-low prices if they want to be profitable and instead need to focus on playing to their strengths of offering convenience and breadth of range whilst working to improve service.
Areas covered in this report
This report is designed to give an overview of the UK online retail market. This includes an overview of the market including forecasts for future developments, in-depth consumer analysis using our own data and a look at the key players in the market in the form of our company profiles.
For our consumer research this year we asked questions on the following topics:
Which devices consumers used to shop online in the last 12 months and whether they were used at home or out-of-home.
The types of products ever purchased online.
The retailers used for online shopping in the last 12 months.
Customer satisfaction with different aspects of the online purchasing process.
Responses to a series of attitudinal statements relating to online shopping.
